Michael Jackson

That said, however, I don’t understand the media’s fixation with the guy. By the same token, I don’t understand Michael’s lifelong obsession with plastic surgery either.

Michael didn’t seem to have any trouble profiting on his God-given talents for singing and dancing. And he was good. Very good. Shivers up your spine good.

So, why did he feel a compulsive need to change his appearance? That, too, was God-given, and seemed to serve him extremely well for a long while. A nose job I can understand. But what he morphed into over time and surgery allowed others, including segments of the same self-serving media, to call him a freak. And, sorry to say, he did look the part at the end.

Was this obsession with appearance a result of growing up virtually in spotlight? Was it drugs? Some aberration in his mental makeup? I’m not sure we’ll ever know. But I know, as a fan, I felt sorrier and sorrier for him as time went on. To the point where I shied away from following him or buying his records, ne’er to return.

Now, this same self-serving media currently fauning over Jackson in his death at the expense of other news will take apart his life, bit by bit, reveling in the worst details and allegations they can dig up for all the world to see. Why? For money, naturally. As they say in the newspaper biz, this story has legs, and the media will milk every tidbit of news, good or bad, for every penny.

And that’s where the real tragedy lies. The family now will have to endure months, if not years, of this nitpicking of Michael’s corpse by the vultures of media concerned only with how the latest hoary headline fattens their bottom line.

Perhaps Michael’s apparent obsession with plastic surgery sprang from a subconscious desire to shield himself from the obsessively harsh lights of celebrity, if only for five freaking minutes.

Again, my heartfelt condolences go out to the Jackson family. May the media hacks that pass for journalists nowadays back off long enough for you to find some peace. If only for five freaking minutes.